HomeBrew: Error- /usr/local/Cellar is not writable

Question

When I run the following command in my terminal:

usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

I get an error:

/usr/local/Cellar is not writable. You should change the
ownership and permissions of /usr/local/Cellar back to your
user account:
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/Cellar

Failed during: /usr/local/bin/brew update --force

I went through similar posts on S.O and all of them had the following commands as answer,so I ran the following commands in the terminal:

sudo chown -R $tejas /usr/local/Cellar
sudo chown -R $tejas:admin /usr/local/Cellar
sudo chown -R $tejas /usr/local
sudo chown -R $tejas:admin /usr/local

I ran the installation command after all above four command but it still gives me the error. Can someone please help me fix this. Thank you.

Did you just try `sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/Cellar' ? — Musen, Nov 21 '16 at 06:13
I guess no? I mean literally `udo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/Cellar`, and do not replace whoami with anything. — Musen, Nov 21 '16 at 06:31
I thought i was supposed to replace that with my account name :/ — , Nov 21 '16 at 06:59
@Musen - It worked when I did `tejas$ sudo chown -R $USER /usr/local/` — , Nov 21 '16 at 09:24
Both `$(whoami)` and `$USER` will be resolved to your user name. — Musen, Nov 22 '16 at 01:26
Check out this post: [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4804169/installing-in-homebrew-errors). It solved my issue! — Beck, Apr 24 '17 at 12:38
What if I need it to be available for several users on the same device? — Cris, Mar 12 '18 at 16:07

score 19 · Answer 1 · answered May 27 '19 at 16:05

19

As said in the comments, just do (without any substitution):

sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/Cellar

answered May 27 '19 at 16:05

Rexcirus

2,459
3
22
42

score 18 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 20 '18 at 07:03

I had exactly same issue. I was trying to reset the permissions but some packages weren't able to install anyway. Re-installing the Homebrew solved this for me:

uninstall:
ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/uninstall)"

and then install it again:
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

score 9 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 09 '17 at 14:52

9

Reset the permissions of /usr/local and Homebrew's caches to the current user:

sudo chown -R $USER:admin /usr/local /Library/Caches/Homebrew

answered Nov 09 '17 at 14:52

Lemaitre Cedric

139
2
7

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 03 '20 at 04:36

I got the same issue on MacOS when install GoAccess:

Error: /usr/local/Cellar is not writable. You should change the
ownership and permissions of /usr/local/Cellar back to your
user account:
  sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/Cellar
Error: The following directories are not writable by your user:
/usr/local/Cellar
/usr/local/share/zsh
/usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions

I fixed it by run following command:

 sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/Cellar /usr/local/share/zsh /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 25 '21 at 08:32

Method 1: This one might work on older operating systems, as it set permission to directory:

 sudo chown -R $USER /usr/local/Cellar

Method 2. On newer system can't set permission on the directory istelf but there's a method to force adding permission to all children folders by using wilcard(asterisk) '*', (of course a bit dangerous?).

sudo chown -R $USER /usr/local/Cellar/*

Method 3: Using prefix for brew (working from >=High Sierra)

sudo chown -R $USER $(brew --prefix)/*

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 05 '19 at 10:28

0

with the help of @Lemaitre Cedric and @Rexcirus ... I fixed my issue.

sudo chown -R $USER:admin /usr/local /Library/Caches/Homebrew
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/Cellar

answered Sep 05 '19 at 10:28

Tushar Pandey

4,557
4
33
50

HomeBrew: Error- /usr/local/Cellar is not writable

6 Answers6